Aviation Expert Witness On Airport Safety Management

The aviation industry always has quoted safety at the forefront of its priorities, and as a general rule, has demonstrated diligence in learning from its mistakes and implementing changes that lead to further improvement. This somewhat reactive approach produced a steady decline in accident rates until the mid-1980s. Since then, the fatal accident rate in air transport operations has remained fairly stable, despite a growth in traffic during the same period. This trend implies little improvement in safety on the operation/accident ratio and suggests that as traffic grows, the total number of accidents also will grow.